I turned my back to him, shoulders hunched as I walked away, but I still heard Sophie say, “Because she wouldn’t suck your cock? Who cares! I’ll do it for you. You know that.”
So that’s what he’d told her? Wow. I wondered who else he might have told that lie to.
My eyes burned as I rushed away from the locker room and across the field. I made it to my building in no time, but wasn’t up for the study session.
I told the girls I would catch them after I grabbed some food, but I didn’t even go to do that. Instead, I showered, but while I was there, I kept fighting the tears. I wanted to blow up, I really did. I wanted to slap the shit out of Brody. He was telling people that we weren’t talking because I wouldn’t suck his cock? Really?
As bad as that was, it was better than him going around telling people that he caught me with Cane.
The next day, I got a text from Coach Carmen, asking me to meet her in her office. After my class, I went straight there. I knocked on her door and she called for me to come in.
Her office was quaint. The walls were a pastel blue and her desk was piled with papers. An open laptop was on the middle of the desk and she was typing rapidly, until she caught sight of me. She stopped tapping her fingers, peering up through the glasses on the bridge of her nose.
Coach Carmen was a pretty woman. Her brown hair was always in tight pin curls, her skin tan, and her eyes a stark blue. Though she was beautiful, she was also very intimidating. Not only from her height—she was a good six feet—but from the coldness of her eyes. I could tell a lot had happened to her in her life by her eyes alone. The way she stared always sent a chill through me, like she could read me like a book and knew everything I was trying hard to hide.
“Jennings,” she greeted, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side of her desk. “Come in. Shut the door behind you.”
I shut the door, walking to the cushioned chair and sliding my tote off my shoulder. Carmen had started typing again, looking through her spectacles. I ran a thumbnail over my cuticle, waiting for her to finish. When she finally did, she closed the laptop and then grabbed her iPhone.
“Is everything okay, Coach?” I asked, sitting up higher in my chair.
“I don’t know, Jennings. You tell me.” She cocked her head.
“I’m confused…” I gave her an uncertain once-over. “Did I do something wrong?”
She sighed and sat up straight, resting her elbows on the desk. She swiped left on her phone a few times, and then set it down on the desk, sliding the device toward me. “Can you tell me who he is and what that was about?”
I frowned at her a bit before picking up the phone. When I saw what was on the screen, I held back a gasp. Holy shit. What! How?
On the screen was me in Cane’s rental car, the night he dropped me off after leaving his hotel. He was holding my face and kissing me. Coach Carmen swiped left again and there was another picture of us, lip-locked.
My heart galloped.
“Well?” she asked, when I jerked myself back in my chair.
“H-how did you get those?” I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to believe it. How could he do that? Why would he do that?
“A teammate told me she was concerned about you. Said you might be trapped in a sticky situation…but from what I’m seeing, you seem perfectly content with this man and with what he was doing to you.” She pointed at the screen again, while my mind ran in circles. The only teammate I could think of that would do this was Sophie. It had to be her and Brody.
“Who is this man?” Coach Carmen asked.
“I—no one. Just a friend.”
“Oh, really? Just a friend? An older friend that you kiss in the parking lot after curfew?” She sat back in her chair. How the hell would she know it was after curfew? She wasn’t there. That was proof that it was Brody. That ignorant son-of-a-bitch!
“He came to campus to visit me, Coach Carmen,” I stated. “It was on a weekend. What I do during my free time shouldn’t be anyone’s concern.”
“Well, on this team, we are like family, and I’m sorry Kandy, but this is unacceptable. Doesn’t matter if it was the weekend, you are still under the care of this school. This is an older man who came onto this campus with one of my athletes and was touching her. How do you think that makes me look? I’m sorry but I have to tell your parents.”